Videoton bow out with their heads held high

Videoton produced another good display of attacking football at the Sostoi stadium on Wednesday evening.

	Champions League Qualifying round 2, 2nd leg VIDEOTON–STURM GRAZ 3–2 (agg. 3-4) Székesfehérvár, Sostoi Stadion. Att: 8,760 Goalscorers: Elek (27.), Sándor. (32.), Lipták (46.), Graz: Hölzl (28.), Feldhofer (39.) Videoton: Tujvel – Brachi, Lipták, Horváth G., H. Sánchez Nagy, Mitrovics, Sándor Gy. (Nikolics, 76.), Elek Á. (Polonkai, 65.), Gosztonyi (Walter, 79.) – Alves.  Sturm: Gratzei – Pürcher (Kopkadze, a szünetben), Feldhofer, Burgstaller, Standfest – Weber – Hölzl, Koch, Wolf (Ehrenreich, 83.) – Muratovics, Szabics (Kienast 45)

It was a night of entertaining football at the Sostoi stadium in Szekesfehervar on Wednesday evening. The match produced five goals, with the home side claiming three of those. The first leg match in Klagenfurt a week earlier saw Sturm Graz emerge 2- 0 winners. Videoton knew that they would have to attack from the start, which is exactly what they did. Backed by a good home crowd of close to 9,000, of which 700 made the journey east from Austria, the red and blues began with a quick tempo. It was midfielder Akos Elek who broke the deadlock on 27 minutes after some good play from striker Alves, and his goal meant that Videoton were back in the tie. However, there was controversy a minute later when Hölzl pounced to put the ball in the back of Vidi keeper Tujvel's net. The assistant linesman had raised his flag on the far side for offside, but the referee over ruled his decision, despite plenty of protests from the home side. 

The action did not stop there as Sturm came back into the match, scoring that all important second away goal. Tujvel dropped the ball and the alert Feldhofer made no mistake from close range to equalise. Once again Videoton pressed forward and showed no signs of giving up. Right back Alvaro Brachi sent in a lovely free kick from the right, which defender Liptak connected with to put the home side 3-2 up on the stroke of half time. 

The referee blew for half time, and there can be no doubt that the opening 45 minutes were pure entertainment. The second half did not live up to the first period, with Sturm defending in numbers. Sandor did have a chance after 71 minutes, following some good build up play, but his shot screamed just wide of the post. In the end the home win was not enough and Franco Foda's side will now make the trip to Georgia next week to play Zestafoni. Paulo Sousa will have been pleased by his sides attacking performance, but now all attention will switch to Sunday evening's OTP league division one match at home to Paks. The visitors themselves have a Europa league match in Norway on Thursday evening.